County website up during business hours

January 8, 2013

STEUBENVILLE - Jefferson County government's website will operate only during normal business hours until further notice because of concerns of cyber attacks.

County Auditor Patrick Marshall and Jim Boni, chief deputy auditor in the data processing department, said the county's website was shut down by the county's data processing department on Friday and not restarted until Monday afternoon.

The cyber attack concerns were raised due to the public discussion over the handling of the rape investigation involving two Steubenville High School students-athletes.

Boni said the website, jeffersoncountyoh.com, was taken down Friday because of risk concerns from cyber attacks. Boni said the biggest concern was a disruption of service caused by other servers constantly accessing the site, thereby slowing it down or even stopping it.

The website contains information from the county clerk of courts, including criminal, civil and domestic case details, real estate searches, downloadable forms, dog license information, scanned county maps and links to other county agencies.

Steubenville City Manager Cathy Davison said Monday the city also is monitoring its website over similar concerns.

Marshall said the county's website will only be available to access during normal business hours. It will be closed down after hours and on the weekends until further notice, Marshall said.

"We have to take precautions to protect what we have," Marshall said. "We want to continue to provide the service, but we want to make sure the service isn't disrupted."

Boni said the county's website will be monitored to determine if there is unusual activity that may affects its ability to provide information to the public.